Celebrating International Day of the Girl

Today, October 11th, is the United Nation’s International Day of the Girl. For some females in first world nations, they may have the luxury of wondering why this day is even necessary? Perhaps, they are fortunate to have been treated as equals to our male counterparts and not feel that they were disadvantaged or discriminated in any way due to being a female. Or, instead, they may be one of the billions of females around the world whose future is limited in every way imaginable because they were born a girl. Their access to equal opportunities for healthcare, education, social-status, and/or political opinion is some cases non-existent, and in the worst cases, it is illegal.

However, the reality for many females who may feel that they haven’t been disadvantaged by being a female is that inequalites and stereotypes are so ingrained in our society that we don’t even notice them happening. That is where the #LikeAGirl campaign helps to demonstrate this beautifully.

This campaign was born from a desire to encourage girls to continue to participate in sports as they reach adolescence. From a global perspective, quite obviously fighting for equal access to quality education and healthcare is very clearly a top priority. However, the #LikeAGirl campaign resonated with me for a number of reasons. Firstly, it demonstrates firsthand how otherwise young, confident, first-world girls have internalised what being like a girl means. This, in turn, presumably goes on to shape their thoughts, their conversations, their opinions of self-worth, and their perceived abilities and limitations as a female in the 21st century.

So, before you write off International Day of the Girl as just another token day on the calendar OR as a day which is only meant for girls in third world countries, just take a look at the #LikeAGirl campaign and see if anything resonates with you. And, if it does, I enthusiastically encourage you to change your dialogue with the boys and girls in your classrooms (and at home) to shed some light on how we can slowly shift such ingrained, outdated, and potentially dangerous stereotypes.

Welcome to my little world of big learning through this wonderful medium of the world wide web. My picture of a giraffe (with thanks to my friend Stephen Walsh for taking this fabulous photo and allowing me to share it) is my idea of “sticking my neck out” and taking on new challenges of eLearning. I hope we can learn, share and inspire together.